It’s not every day that a phrase like this comes to mind. Yet I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking it as I watch young women perform a tribal dance on the grounds of the Calgary Zoo.

Before a small crowd of zoo visitors on Thursday morning, the women, along with one adorable little girl, brave the chilly weather in brightly coloured outfits, their bare shoulders and the exotic music transporting us to Ghana, the West African country which on this day they do their best to represent.

Behind them stand Calgary Zoo president and CEO Clement Lanthier and Axel Moehrenschlager, the zoo’s director of conservation and science, along with local philanthropist Andrea Brussa; the two men are also dressed in tribal clothing and all three are looking very happy.

This is to be expected, as it’s a day they’ve been hoping for, and working hard to get to, for many years. With Lanthier and Brussa just returned from Ghana, it’s the first time back in Canada that they are celebrating the opening of a shea butter factory in that country more than 10,000 kilometres away.

Chrystabelle Ameyaw, 5, danced in a traditional costume with members of the Ghanaian Royal Cultural Dancers from Calgary, during a celebration on September 3, 2105 of the opening of an organic shea butter processing plant run in conjunction with the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary in Ghana, Africa. The shea butter nuts are collected at the sanctuary and then processed.Colleen De Neve /
Calgary Herald

The seeds for the factory that produces organic shea butter for a variety of uses — and today provides employment for more than 1,600 women in 17 villages surrounding the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary — were sowed in 2006, when one African visitor spoke out at a Calgary Zoo event.

“He challenged us to help them,” says Lanthier of Meteu-Naa, one of the village chiefs frustrated that while the local women gathered the shea nuts — it has been a traditional woman’s job for centuries — they weren’t seeing all the potential fruits of their labour, since the nuts were simply picked up and shipped somewhere else. “He told us that giving more work for the people there would help them and help the sanctuary.”

The Calgary Zoo and local partners in Ghana had established the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary in 1998. That initiative, a pet project of then-conservation outreach head Brian Keating and other visionary Calgary Zoo folk, evolved over the years into a rare, community-based conservation approach that included installing solar-powered lights, creating clean water wells and a medical clinic, along with two schools in the area where the sanctuary sits.

The long-term partnership — overseen on the ground in Ghana by Donna Sheppard, the Calgary Zoo’s conservation adviser — has proven so successful that in 2008 it won an Equator prize from the United Nations, an award given out to the world’s top conservation initiatives.

“You have to score success on both,” says Moehrenschlager of the community-based conservation approach that focuses on the animals as well as their human neighbours, one that in this case is helping more than 10,000 people in 17 communities. “If you ignore the human component, your conservation efforts fail.”

The human component in a place like Ghana, says Moehrenschlager, is one in which such daily activities as gathering water and making enough money to feed one’s children can be a monumental challenge.

“In order to succeed in a developing country, you need to be economically viable,” he says of the approach that also focuses on giving a hand up rather than a hand out, “and align your conservation approaches with the local culture and traditions.”

Calgary Zoo president and CEO Clement Lanthier and philanthropist Andrea Brussa address the crowd during a celebration on September 3, 2105 of the opening of an organic shea butter processing plant run in conjunction with the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary in Ghana, Africa.Colleen De Neve /
Calgary Herald

The shea butter processing centre, known as the Wechiau Hippo Factory, came about after years of fundraising by the Calgary Zoo, with local lady Andrea Brussa serving as one of its biggest backers. After the factory was built, it was given back to the community, which in turn gives a small percentage of its profits to keep the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary, where more than 30 hippos live, running.

“It is a sustainable and economic business model,” says Lanthier, noting the area’s biggest economic driver, ecotourism, was hurt badly last year after the Ebola outbreak in Africa resulted in a 40 per cent drop in tourists to Ghana. “Throughout the area, it has resulted in a significant increase in health, wealth and diversity.”

For Brussa, going to Ghana last month and seeing the results of her philanthropy was a moving experience. When she arrived at the factory, she was greeted by crowds of smiling women and children and then brought into a room where hundreds stood up and gave her a standing ovation.

“I was completely overwhelmed,” she says, her eyes tearing up at the memory. “I think it was only then that I fully realized the importance of the project to the entire area.”

Still, she didn’t need to think twice before signing on to help, even before she knew just how far-ranging an impact it would have.

“For these women the factory is about empowerment, a future for them and their children,” says the self-described hippo lover.

“It’s just win-win,” she says of the long-term project that has proven when you help a village, you help one of West Africa’s last remaining, healthy hippo populations. “However you look at it.”

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